Lawsuit Alleges Censorship by Illinois Department of Corrections
A Florida based non-profit organization that advocates for the human rights of prisoners plans to file a federal lawsuit against the Illinois Department of Corrections. The Human Rights Defense Center, which publishes a 72-page monthly publication that covers news and court rulings related to the criminal justice system, says that IDOC is censoring their publication from prisoners. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that IDOC has withheld “all or part of issues of Prison Legal News, as well as books published and/or distributed by HRDC” from prisoners, and violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. According to a press release from the Uptown People’s Law Center, a Chicago-based organization that advocates for the rights of prisoners, some 200 prisoners were subscribed to the publication as of January 2018.